Every few days, I post musings, ideas, quotes, and mini-essays on writing, painting, and the creative process. I'm a professional freelance editor, pastellist, and novelist. I believe in supporting the creativity of all of us.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Between-projects slump

Today is Writing Friday, at least 5 hours ahead of me to write and I'm in a slump. I finished draft 2 of novel #2 earlier this week and it's in the hands of two trusted early readers. No feedback yet. There are a number of things I could do. Write a number of blog posts so I have a stockpile for busy weeks. Write prompts in my fiction notebook. Go through my 100 poems and begin to revise and shape them into a collection. I could read in the two new technique and style books I have. I could write some more poetry. I could write a short story. I could take notes for a nonfiction book on intentional living.

But in my creative heart of hearts, I want to be deep in the writing of a novel, moving forward in a story that is unfolding as I write it. Hooked by characters and circumstances and crafting marvelous detailed sentences that please me. So I'm going to honor that impulse and spend at least part of the day going over my big notebook of story starts and seeing if any of them speak to me. I've one notebook from 6 or 7 years ago that I may not have harvested for ideas. So maybe this is a day of sitting, ruminating, thinking.

We have sunshine for the first time in forever so maybe I'll go sit outside and get a great idea!